From: Janes, Mike
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2000 10:39 AM
To: 'ewz@cbsnews.com'
Subject: Some summer ideas for you to chew on

Hi Erica, Mike Janes here at The American Institute of Architects in Washington. How's your summer going? Been keeping busy?

I have a few ideas I'd like to run by you. If any of them fly, they'd likely be most appropriate for the Sunday Evening News, or perhaps Sunday Morning (do you produce for them?). I've tried to keep these brief, but please bear with me:

** Victor Regnier, both an architect and a gerontologist (he teaches at the University of Southern California), is a renowned expert on assisted-living housing facilities for older people. At the recent AIA convention, Regnier presented a fascinating workshop based on a 1999 site visit research analysis of 100 housing projects for older mentally and physically frail people in five Northern European countries. Regnier, who teaches at the University of Southern California, can illustrate design features that make the assisted-living environment more accessible, encourage independence, enable informal social exchange, support therapeutic programs, build physical competency, and balance the community and privacy concerns of residents. Regnier, by the way, was a recent guest on the NPR program "Fresh Air" on this topic.

** The tenth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is coming up in just a couple of weeks (the 26th). Has the ADA worked? If not, why not? As the "implementers" of the ADA, i.e. the ones charged with designing accessible facilities and public spaces, how do architects feel about the issue, especially those who have been sued for non-compliance? Why is the AIA lobbying the Justice Department for increased clarity and certainty of the law? (at the end of this email, I've attached a recent article from a San Diego paper that does a pretty good job of conveying this issue). If you happen to know anyone there, Erica, who's working on an ADA piece (a lot of outlets are doing just that, given the upcoming anniversary), I'd be grateful if you could pass this on to them. My biggest fear is that the design component is going to be forgotten in the coverage, as it often seems to be. We hear a lot about the litigation, the high-profile (e.g. Clint Eastwood) cases, and so forth, so it's easy to leave out the point-of-view of the architects. As the ones ultimately responsible for designing accessible facilities and public places, any discussion of the ADA's success or non-success has to include the architecture/design profession.

** Martha Welborne is an LA-based architect working to develop a high-speed bus transport system there, one that's already in place (and overwhelmingly successful) in Curibita, Brazil. It's more than just a "bus system" as most people know it; it involves several unique and innovative components that could genuinely change public transportation in LA and elsewhere. Martha, FYI, has some great computer-simulation stuff that she put together with UCLA, and there's an eight-minute video narrated by actor James Edward Olmos that illustrates what it's all about.

Let me know if any of these strike your fancy, or if you'd like additional info on any of them.

Hope all's well,

Mike Janes
Director, Media Relations
The American Institute of Architects
(202) 626-7467
mjanes@aia.org

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